Friday, August 22, 2008

Jeffery, Andrew V. "Review of George Levine's DARWIN LOVES YOU." MOR August 19, 2008.

Levine, George. Darwin Loves You: Natural Selection and the Re-enchantment of the World. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2006. One of the great challenges confronting the modern philosopher is the preservation of meaning and value in the "disenchanted" world described by science: a world apparently bereft of teleology and supernatural transcendence. Probably no scientist's re-description of the world is more frequently cited as a source of this disenchantment than that of Charles Darwin. It is Weber's version of this "disenchantment narrative" that George Levine has taken as his foil in Darwin Loves You, and it is Darwin that Levine seeks to vindicate. Levine's principle theme is that one can find in Darwin's life and writings a model for 'secular enchantment,' a way of seeing the world that, while thoroughly naturalistic, "finds in nonhuman nature the energy, diversity, beauty, intelligence, and sensibility that might provide a world-friendly alternative to otherworldly values" (xv). . . . Read the rest here: http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=4423.

No comments:

Post a Comment